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Showing posts from August, 2014

Dealing with strong-willed parents

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In the wake of what I now call the Cardiff fandango , I have been having a summer of hardline parenting, research into Manipulative and Strong-Willed Children, and experimentation. Here's what happened and what I learnt: 1. Getting the kids to do chores I don't want to do, but need to get done (aka washing the car, weeding the path), and paying them for it, can be incredibly good fun. Learning: if it costs a bob or two, don't sweat it. They did the work, they earnt it. 2. Always seize the opportunity to pick blackberries when out and about. A sure sign that the summer holidays are coming to an end, and absolutely free. Learning: take a hat, you never know when you'll need extra storage. 3. Put up a tent in the garden , and let the children stay out overnight. The first night son was back in twenty minutes, afraid of foxes. But once daughter had made it, he screwed his courage to his sticking plaster, and stayed put, even in the rain. Learning: sibling ri

Chopping and changing

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We came home from abortive trip to Cardiff yesterday, where I discovered son's new vocation as a hairdresser: Fringe drama Today we got up, and I promptly missed an early morning yoga class, because, despite all my good intentions (my plans to get up at 6am, my plans to re-read my manuscript, get close to my material, find points to integrate other voices), I feel keel-hauled every matins by the shenanigans of the day before. Luckily my husband was there to wake up son, before leaving for work and then a trip to watch cricket in Manchester for a couple of days, an event I have studiously failed to understand was on the horizon. After yelling at the children to get dressed, put their stuff away, do their teeth, and stop making me say the SAME THINGS EVERY SINGLE DAY, as I am going completely bananas, I heard myself say to my son, "If you wash the car, I'll pay you £6." Once this job had been handed out, my daughter wanted to earn some cash too, so I set her to

Summer holiday blues

This was the year I was going to crack it. I was determined to enjoy the summer holidays and family time. My daughter has just finished primary school, and this is her last summer before secondary. It feels like the right moment to push a little harder to get her to step gingerly out of the nest and start flapping her little wings. And it also feels like the right moment to get her to help clean the nest up, frankly. I put some activities in the diary, and sat back, thinking, "And they can amuse themselves around that skeleton structure". In those words, damn my hubris. As I sit here this evening, catatonic, I look back at the diary, and realise we've done an awful lot, and that I am simply tired. In the last fortnight, we have been to Sussex, the Cotswolds, and Wales, our son has starred in Frozen , I've had reflexology, and started running, I've worked on a book my daughter and I are writing, picked pounds of summer fruit, gone to an urban beach, daughter h